The Astros’ Alex Bregman spreads his arms in celebration after driving in the game-winning run during the 10th inning of Game 5 of the World Series late Sunday night in Houston as the Dodgers’ Chris Taylor, center, and Corey Seager look on. The series hasn’t lacked for emotional displays. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

They led by four and then it was tied. They led by three and then it was tied. They led by one and then it was tied. They trailed by three and then it was tied.

They were tied and then it was …

Over?

Yes, then it was over. Just like that.

As suddenly as a line drive off the bat of a Houston Astro found the turf of Minute Maid Park.

As swiftly as the legs of a Houston Astro sent the winning run skidding across home plate.

A marathon clipped in an instant, which is still plenty of time to break a million or more hearts.

Then it was over Sunday, the popular suggestion being to call this wild 2017 World Series a roller-coaster ride. That’s ridiculous, since no roller-coaster ride lasts 5 hours, 17 minutes, Game 5 alone looping and twisting and tumbling enough to churn the stomach of a statue.

When it finally ended in a 13-12 Houston victory, the Astros naturally burst forth from their dugout as subtly and tranquilly as a school bus full of kids sprinting into summer vacation.

With their teeth on fire and their blood-sugar levels equal to that of a Snickers.

Video: Dodgers vs. Astros Game 6 preview on Halloween

Though records are sketchy, this World Series certainly has topped the 112 that have come before it in one statistical category: Emotions expressed.

Entering Game 6 on Tuesday, the Astros and Dodgers have done just about everything imaginable, except hide their feelings.

If this series had a face, it would be screaming into the chaos of a thundering stadium that’s screaming right back.

“There’s just been so many emotional swings,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, and that was before Game 5 came unhinged, releasing another round of exuberance and merriment, another parade of jubilant jocks.

After driving home the game’s 25th and final run Sunday, Houston’s Alex Bregman circled the bases with his arms spread wide like an airplane, one capable of soaring all the way back to Dodger Stadium.

Then he stopped to talk to Fox’s cameras just long enough to get so lost in the moment that he incorrectly credited teammate George Springer with hitting two home runs rather than the one Springer really hit.

“Just pure joy,” Bregman explained later. “Because when you look around and you see the smiles on your teammates’ faces, it makes everything worth it. It makes every weight that you lifted in the offseason, every swing that you took in the cage. …

“When you feel like you came through for your team, and you see the joy on their faces, there’s nothing like it. It’s such a special feeling that I’m so fortunate and blessed to feel.”

To feel and then convey to America in the form of celebratory calisthenics similar to ones usually reserved for winning things like an Olympic gold medal or a state-run lottery.

The heartfelt displays the past week have been crazier even than last season, when the Cubs ended a 108-year World Series drought, an achievement so dramatic that people were moved to wrap headstones in jerseys in order to share the victory with dead loved ones.

And all this is happening not even two years after baseball was accused of dulling the personality out of its players by Washington’s Bryce Harper, a man who wears his passions like he does his hair – long and obvious.

“Baseball’s tired,” Harper said in the spring of 2016. “It’s a tired sport, because you can’t express yourself.”

Tired? Maybe. But this World Series, after 48 innings, 13 tied scores and 18 hours, 56 minutes of game time is definitely exhausted, as spent as a bullpen’s worth of discarded sunflower seed shells.

And, as for expressing yourself, there was Houston’s Carlos Correa in Game 2. After homering in the 10th inning, he didn’t flip his bat as much as he launched it, the two acts like comparing a flicked pancake to a tossed javelin.

There was the Dodgers’ Joc Pederson, in the same game, rounding second base after a home run and shouting something so blatantly expressive that TV replays obscured his mouth as to not permit the country to lip-read his four-letter delight.

In Game 4, there was Dodgers starter Alex Wood, so excited about retiring the Astros, that he bellowed the chewing gum right out of his mouth as he stalked off the mound.

Those are only the highlights, too, numerous players on both sides also thrusting index fingers, raising fists and applauding for themselves, and that’s while the ball has been still in play!

After his 11th-inning homer in Game 2 – one that brought the Dodgers to within 7-6 – Charlie Culberson was so demonstrative that Fox’s Joe Buck criticized him to all of America for thinking he had tied the score.

“I knew the score,” Culberson countered later. “It was adrenaline, and I think anybody would say the same thing.”

It has been a World Series of surging adrenaline, both teams overdosing on the stuff.

Sometime in the next two days, it will be over, punctuated by one final eruption of pure joy, a tired sport now fully awakened by a screaming face.

Jeff Miller has been a sports columnist since 1998, having previously written for the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. He began at the Register in 1995 as beat writer for the Angels.

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